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When we last left our heroine… after spending most of grey January attempting to make a replacement queen bed quilt, I decided I needed to play more. The first thing that came from that remarkable awakening was a complete change in direction!

So I ripped the blocks out of the rows and began anew, this time doing it my way! And incredibly, my mojo returned. Now I cannot wait to get into the studio and cut/paste this new abstract modern design for our quilt.

What all of this has reminded me is I am not the same person I was 20 years ago when I made the original quilt, which is now worn, thin and faded. Why go backwards? Why was I trying to force myself in a backwards direction? It reminded me of wisdom from my then 30-something daughter, when asked (not by me) if she would date an old boyfriend? She said why would I go backwards?

before I came to my senses

after

Here are the before and the after. Clearly the after is so much more exciting, at least to me. And that is what matters, as I am the one who has to live with it. I can’t wait for that to happen!

I have just finished designing three pieces of art embellished with plastic. They are Plastic Ocean 1, Plastic Ocean 2 and Underwater Garden. It has been a long and winding road that led me to the point where I felt it important to make a statement about the massive quantities of plastic in our oceans.

I have been an avid recycler for 30+ years. I just assumed if I were recycling it, good was coming of it; yet I was astonished when visiting other states that had different recycling standards, if at all. Or other counties just in the Bay Area. Some recycle styrofoam, some don’t. Some take food containers while others don’t. Huh?…Aren’t we all living on the same planet?

So I was just going along being a good consumer, recycling as much as I could, when it suddenly came to my attention that there is a whole lot of plastic floating out there in the ocean. At first I was thinking, OMG, that is not right but really not thinking about it much more than that.

Then I began to see on social media, especially, more and more posts about ALL the plastic in the ocean. I befriended folks who are picking up trash on beaches world-wide. I learned about the fish choking on plastic, turtles with straws lodged in their nose, marine mammals caught in fishing nets & line. I saw videos of tidal waves of plastic churning worldwide, and kids playing in a surf of plastic debris. It was becoming more and more difficult to avoid thinking about it; the I am doing my part by recycling, this does not affect me school of thought. It began to dawn on me that with education this is quite possibly something humans can have an impact on in the world. So why not educate through art?!

Last winter I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and see these incredible sculptures by Sayaka Ganz . She designed huge installations just from plastic trash recovered from the oceans. I was intrigued by these works, and the mind that created them.

Sakaya Ganz’ plastic sculpture

Sakaya Ganz’ rescued plastic garbage sculpture

I began to think about my own work, and my own voice. Since I was wearing braces on my lower teeth and using a huge amount of plastic toothpicks to clean my teeth, I began to collect them. Someone actually said eeew! to me about using my used oral implements, but in reality isn’t all of this plastic debris eeew?!

I continued to collect whatever plastic I was using. I stopped buying food packaged in single use plastic, abandoning my favorite place to buy groceries when they could not say if or when they will replace this packaging. I wrote to all the major grocers in my area and asked that they stop using single use plastic. Some replied they are ‘working on it’ while others told me to tell the produce guy next time I am in the store…talk about passing the buck!

credit card ‘guitar picks’

So as my personal plastic collection was growing, I began to design elements for these quilts. I stitched, both by hand and machine the aforementioned dental picks to a water soluble fiber. I punched guitar picks out of a collection of expired credit cards, drivers licenses and hotel room keys. Then I hand stitched those to the water soluble fiber. I cut disks from remnants of pool noodles, which I use most often to ship my work. I culled the newspaper bags (don’t even get me started on why the newspaper has to be robed in plastic every day year round, or worse why do we still subscribe!)

After designing and stitching two identical quilts, I began to hand-stitch the various plastic remnants on to it. I learned a few things. One, even using teflon sheets and pressing from the back, the heat will melt the plastic! Two, plastic is really hard to sew through! Three, while hand-stitching is so meditative, hand-stitching around plastic is not. Four, while I never make work specific to a theme, my initial intention for this work shifted halfway through. I went a completely new direction, and crammed in one more piece to make a submission deadline, for an environmental center. If my work is chosen I will be making minimally 2-5 more pieces for the exhibit next year!

All throughout construction, I did not allow myself to think about how to store this work, which essentially cannot be bent, or rolled. Or so I thought. Actually I was able to roll all three together around a cardboard tube, and then place in one bag. That was maybe the easiest part!

While I wait for the jury results, I am going to sort/purge my print studio, which is really overdue. And then start in on my next series about elder women….or possibly sew more plastic!

With an early morning orthodontist appointment that sent me running as soon as my feet hit the floor, I have yet to slow down. I have 90 mins between appointments when I thought I would stitch, but alas here I am doing a blog post. I should be meditating which would make everything fall into place…ah meditation guilt!

What got me thinking about a blog post was an errand to the superstore to stock up on things like dishwasher soap and shampoo. Normally I avoid the chain supermarkets but sometimes one has to just stock up. While there I got a huge size of gallon ziplock bags. I also picked up a box of hand wipes. As soon as I was home and unpacking I got so disturbed with myself that out of habit I bought these things.

You see in the past year I have become educated as to the glut of plastic garbage that floats out to sea, drifting aimlessly in a stew of other forgotten necessities; strangling fish, killing coral, and what remains often ends up on the beaches of beautiful places we all hope to visit one day. I believe I am more upset about this than any other chaos or disaster affecting our planet, probably because if we each did more than our part we might be able to affect change. So what am I doing about it?!

As most of us who have done any work on ourselves know, half of the problem is awareness. Once we are aware of something that needs to be changed, or a bad habit to be broken, that is half the battle. So I wonder why when I am so outraged do I continue to buy the products that offend? I justify it by saying, well I recycle, but isn’t the problem with the product itself and not with the conscientious recycler? Isn’t the problem that these kinds of single use plastics are being made in the first place? Isn’t the problem that so many people are throwing their trash on the streets rather than in a garbage can two feet away? What ever happened to simple human decency? Well that is a subject for another day.

So note to self. Stop buying the offending products, even if I do recycle. Why contribute to the problem? And you might wonder WTH this has to do with art making? Well, a lot! Since I finished the Defining Moments series I am between projects. I am designing a number of narrative pieces because it turns out I do have an opinion, on a lot of different subjects!

For the past couple of weeks I have been doing battle royale with a new piece of work about the masses moving out of California to other states. Last year 46,000 more left, than came in. Mostly people leave because it is so expensive to live here, but in my research of 6 friends moving out of state, all but one initially came from somewhere else. Only one native has left. Yes we are a hearty lot!

Today the initial layers are ready for the needle. It has been a duel between the work and me, with lots of cloth bias with which to contend. More than once I have wanted to pitch it in the trash. It still has trash (er, recycle) potential but I am hoping the needle will make it behave.

OK, ok…now I will meditate! Only because I no longer have time to stitch!

2018 has been hectic thus far… took a short trip, got bad news about a friend’s health, got the flu and battled that for two weeks, followed by nearly three weeks of digestive issues. Now hoping that I am on the mend, I am pondering my next creative steps.

I decided to do a no. 25 in the Defining Moments series and have that started on the design wall. This one will be a homage to my good friend, project partner and mentor Marion Coleman. We met 15 years ago and shortly thereafter she became my mentor on the Tall Girl Series. It is she who suggested we do the Defining Moments series and provided me with the inspiration and incentive to start. She is the most generous artist I know and meeting her was definitely a defining moment in my life.

I also have been giving a lot of thought to my next body of work, and started the research and development on that. In addition I have various forms of hand-work that beg my attention.

There is the knitting I have ripped out four times, likely as a means of seeing just how strong this yarn is or how much abuse it can really take.

There is the hand-stitching of the water in France, on which I initially used too large a needle and am also now considering changing yarn weight and color entirely. Oh there’s that masterpiece thinking again!

And there is the hemp yarn I bought on vacation to knit two things, a washcloth and a shopping bag. I knit a small cotton washcloth years ago and love it for the shower! You notice the skeins are still intact.

And then of course this fabulous Noro yarn I also bought on vacation, to create a very cool ladder scarf, which I discovered after I got home was crocheted and not knit. My hands don’t hurt enough from knitting that I am going to take up crochet?

I am not sure what all this says about me personally. The inner critic says I can’t settle down and do one thing at a time or that I am dissatisfied or bored. Hubs would say I have to multi-task and save nano-seconds!

The wise me thinks it is all good. All these things are stirring the creative juices. Plus it is not a competition as to how much I can do at once. And yes I am easily bored!

In other news I decided to make a weekend sprint to Anchorage this summer, to see my friend Amy Meissner’s Inheritance Project exhibit at the Anchorage Museum. This is big for two reasons. I have not been away solo for nearly a year & that I seldom go the 30 miles to the Bay Area to see art! Yet I have been so inspired by Amy’s extraordinary use of these vintage textiles to make art. After sharing time and space with her in OH last year, making this north to Alaska jaunt was a no-brainer. I look forward to this quick getaway and reuniting with her and some of the other Quiet Women from Quilt National 17.

The response to my 70 for 70 sale has been tremendous! Thank you so much to all who have purchased my work. It warms my heart to know so many love my work, while simultaneously allowing me to reduce inventory! Work has flown off the shelves and just four are remaining…

Adrift 19″ x 26″, an experimental piece using potato dextrin resist and a tile layer’s tool to manipulate the paste.Decay 5, 36” x 32”, I rusted the base fabric in the garden, and delighted to see nature created holes in the cloth; screen printed with leaves and emphasized the holes with stitching.Heatwave, 16” x 16”, I hand-dyed canvas and screen-printed with original imagery on a very hot day!Red Door, Feng Shui 2, 26” x 30”, A subdivision of beige houses with red doors, went up on the hill behind us. I screen-printed window shapes on the pieced background.

Until December 13 these four pieces are $70 each, in honor of my 70th birthday!

You may see this work by visiting the 70 for 70 page on my website. If you see something you love, want, covet, must have, send an email with the name of the piece, your name, address and phone number. I will invoice you through Paypal. If you do not have a Paypal account, let me know that too! Small print: I will charge $5.95 sales tax on each piece sold. I will pay the shipping. All sales are final.

Knowing when to stop could apply to a lot of things in life. When to stop eating sugar, when to stop obsessing about your way too short haircut, when to stop expectations for others’ behavior, etc.

For me, in this moment knowing when to stop came last night as I laid yet one more layer on #20. This poor piece now has at least 6 layers of cloth and batt, with cotton and perle threads galore.

Decades ago when I was a weaver I had a mentor who said, if it looks incomplete, add more. I always have remembered that and have frequently put it to work. On the flip side is knowing when to stop. I have reached that point with this piece.

#20 is about the harried years, which for me were the 80’s and ’90’s when I was wife, mother, small business owner and employee in a medical office. I went swimming on my lunch hour, on the days that I was not driving my kid from daycare to preschool, then to elementary school, junior high and eventually high school. I was a ‘soccer Mom’ before soccer moms were cool! I was most often in my car, driving to work, to the grocery store, to the post office, to Brownies, 4-H, swim team, piano lessons, and so on. For the base of this piece I typed a list of words describing my life at that time, and screen printed the list to the cloth. I also screen-printed the same list to hand-dyed cloth to be used for lettering. On top of the background I layered the Brownie sash, a baby vintage ’79 t-shirt, an image of the cover of my favorite bedtime story (GoodNight Moon), the front of a hand-spun, handwoven baby bomber jacket I had created, the biz card from my yarn business, image of hubs and I in our respective hand-spun, hand-woven, sewn bomber jackets, a hand-stitched ‘how to’ book cover and pieces of a quilted pillow my grandmother had made for my daughter as newborn.

more letters…

Defining Moments 20: The Harried Years, detail How To book

Then I figured out how many of each letter I needed to spell out the words which I had previously screen-printed to the cloth. I decided not to use all the words of course as that would be too busy! First I cut Helvetica 2″ letters and fused and stitched those randomly, then I cut out Helvetica 3″ stenciled letters. I worried a bit about not having enough painted fabric for letters, so I painted more and continued to cut. In the end I had close to 50 extra letters! I laid the screen-printed stenciled letters on top of the printed background fabric and then hand-stitched each letter down, primarily to give it some contrast. The letters are fused but as we know that does not always hold into perpetuity. So I figured the hand-stitching added another layer of interest to this already busy piece. As I proceeded along I began to see quite clearly that it was next to impossible to read the lettering. There is not enough contrast between the painted background and the painted letters. I thought of my mentor long ago, just add more as I stitched along, for what seemed like forever, but was probably a month or so!

Defining Moments 20: The Harried Years, detail baby bomber jacket

Letters were all stitched and the piece went back up on the wall. Yep. Can’t read ’em! Oy vey, what to do now? Actually the first thing I did was start #21. I just needed an escape hatch from what was becoming a cumbersome piece.

Then I tried out pinning various widths of b/w strips under to the words to highlight them. That sort of worked but looked awful. So I ended up cutting little snippets of a curvy b/w stripe, fusing each one to a portion of each letter and then free-motion stitched them down. It actually made them slightly easier to read. Yet I knew I could not fathom putting one more thing on this piece! I knew it was time to stop.

The irony in all of this is the piece is about a harried time in my life. The piece is busy. Does harried not equal busy?! I think it works in some sort of bizarre way. When I have had a chance to photograph it in full, it will be up on my website but in the meantime these are just details.

It seems as if I have been working on #20 forever. I have been hand stitching screen-printed letters as the final layer. In some places I am stitching through 4 or 5 layers of cloth, which does not make it any easier or faster for my tired old hands. But it is great listening to baseball work! And I am mostly liking the result.

My hesitation lies in the fact that this piece is extremely busy. That is it’s challenging to make out what it is all about which is really a bit ironic. Because it is about the harried years, the years I spent in my car driving to work, to swim on my lunch hour, and my kid to school, daycare, piano lessons, swim team, 4H, brownies. And of course buying groceries and all the household stuff of cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc etc etc.

So I am thinking if it is a bit busy it is literal. For now I am not dealing with the busy, just hand-stitching. When that layer is complete I will re-examine busy!

Meanwhile, I decided I should start designing #21 so that I can multitask once more. When I mentioned to someone I was going to do the next piece on loss, they said no I shouldn’t! I just thought that was their stuff because in reality loss is a part of life and I believe if done well really does enrich a life.

For example, had my long-time employer not died of cancer when I was 50, I might never have left a dead-end (no pun intended) job and became a textile artist! Sure I probably would have kept on sewing garments, and maybe dabbled in color in one way or another, but would I have taken a myriad of workshops and learned a collection of skill sets and had time to develop a portfolio, market my work, exhibit and travel? Probably not. So in a sense that particular loss shook me to my core but enabled me to reinvent myself!

So in this version of LOSS I am including those who I loved most dearly and how their taking leave, whether through death or simply walking away, defined my life. It is interesting that in doing the writing and digging out the old photos, how much is stirred up again, even after all this time.

A lot of folks don’t want to think about loss or the inevitable; whereas I always want to understand, see between the lines, what does this mean, why now, why him, why her, to comprehend the big picture. I believe we are all here to learn something. I have a friend who thinks that is hooey. She says some people are just jerks and there is no ‘lesson.’

I partially agree in that I think some are here simply to do lunch. Thankfully that is not me!

After several weeks of contemplative staring at the wall, I am hard at work on no. 20 in this Defining Moments series. This one is about the harried years and my biggest challenge again was figuring out how to depict it. Finally I decided on a screen-printed background, with imagery & letters overlaid describing that chaotic time.

I decided two sizes of letters would be good, so I traced and cut Helvetica 2″ and Helvetica 3″ letters. Essentially the letters spell the same words that are screen-printed onto the cloth. Before I cut I calculated how many of each letter I needed because to just do it any other way would be crazy. I have been working on the letters for several days now, and also stitched the background in preparation for the layering. Yesterday I cleared off my design table to lay out the stacks of letters in alpha order to begin the actual layering of words.

How I was able to function yesterday at all is a miracle. I had just 3.5 hours of interrupted sleep the night before, for reasons I need not go into here. When I got up, nearly the first thing I did was walk into a wall, for which my right arm and right knee are painful reminders this day. As the day went on my energy returned somewhat and thus developed the letter laying plan.

Only this morning when I woke up refreshed did I realize what a huge mistake I had made in stacking this enormous pile of letters onto half of the design table. I actually needed to trim and square the already stitched background (quilt) so I know exactly how far to the edges I can lay the letters. And where would I do such a procedure? On my design table of course! The same design table that is covered with stacks of letters.

So what did I do? I did what any self-respecting efficiency expert would do. I gingerly folded the quilt in half one direction and then the other and trimmed the edges on the remaining open half of the table. And of course it was nowhere near square so I had to gingerly lay it down several times. I got it done with only 5-6 letters flying to the floor. I saved so much time and so much more sanity by not removing the letters and then re-laying them down!

I have often heard it said that getting to know someone is like peeling an onion. My new style of working is more like peeling the onion, in reverse. It is a layering process.

Ever since I succumbed to the siren call of the mid-arm my whole style of designing has changed. Now, because I can, I stitch each piece in layers. First I piece the background and then quilt that. No more skies that start and stop at the edge of a building. Now the sky goes all the way across as a sky does. No more fused parts loosening up and dog-earring while stitching an entire piece. Now the machine appliqué parts are fused and then stitched, in their own time. It is so much easier and truly remarkable how much more professional the work looks doing it this way.

stitching text

I am currently wrapping up Defining Moments 19: Motherhood which has been a bear to create. It was a bear because I could not figure out what I wanted to say or how I wanted to say it. I was reminded by my favorite aunt that motherhood for me was a challenge, and like all people, places or things that have challenged me in this life; they also have challenged me in the series. I was at a total loss for a design. I knew I needed to include Motherhood as a defining moment but oy, how? Finally I just sat down and started writing, free thinking if you will, just writing without editing. And what come out was remarkable.

free-writing, also screen the background

I wrote about how I never considered whether I wanted kids or not, because that is not what women in my generation did. We got married and had kids. It was the norm, it was expected. It’s what you did. Some might question how I could even admit that and yet I am here to tell you that my daughter, now grown, made her own decision not to have children, in her 20’s. When she told me, I thought what great courage and integrity it took to make that decision and do something about it. Perhaps her decision gave me permission to admit publicly I was uncertain if I should reproduce or not.

Another thing that came through the writing was my battle with postpartum depression. I struggled through it for many months and had never really spoken much of it, certainly not at that time. Those two issues alone make for a very strong piece about motherhood.

collage of daughter’s childhood images

Then I decided to then add something that personified the blessing that came to me through motherhood. So I made a collage on silk organza of some of the most wonderful photos of my daughter growing up. This adds the paradox of my motherhood experience; from all that worry and stress came this beautiful baby who grew into a woman of such integrity and conviction. She continues to be one of my greatest teachers, as I peel back the layers.

The end goal for finishing the Defining Moments series of 25 pieces is my 70th birthday. Since I am now working on no.19 one could surmise that 70 is approaching. Yes, indeed this is the year, should I be fortunate enough, to reach my 70th birthday. I find that prospect both exhilarating and daunting. Mostly I think a lot about how is this even possible? How can a young person like me be turning 70?! Ha. Twenty five years ago I was in the prime of my life at 44 and 25 years ahead I could be pushing 100, which in my family is entirely possible.

the key looking great past 70 is….hang out with older people!

Aging is both a blessing and a curse. I tend to focus on the blessing, keeping in mind my three dear friends who lost cancer battles and did not have the opportunity. I left two of them behind in my fifties and another two years ago.

I tend to keep my focus on my art and seeing light, color, texture, pattern and shape in everyday life. There is, especially today, so much I could be worrying about other than the next birthday. In fact too many things to worry about, any of which make the following post both shallow and immaterial.

Yet occasionally I am reminded by media, other people or even my own mirror that I am gaining seniority. The two most recent examples were a cashier at Trader Joes who spoke to me but never looked at my face. I was down there somewhere. The very next day the receptionist where I have my hair cut took my cash, made my next appointment and not once looked at me. Initially her rendering me invisible made me angry until my glass half full mindset thought how sad is it to be her and never look anyone in the eye, to never make a connection with another human being. Perhaps it’s the digital mindset.

And yet there are still those little reminders; the distraction while driving to barely avoid someone in the crosswalk (is it my eyes, am I going blind?), the ‘senior moment’ where I ponder is this normal aging or dementia like my sister and my father before her? The dermatologist who with her tight face mentions that ‘unfortunately there is nothing available for YOUR old crepey skin and if there was I would be rich.’ Well bitch according to this ad there is something available and you missed the boat.

If only you had been smart enough to think of this, doc

…how to avoid wrinkles…NOT!

My father used to tell me, as a teenager, that I should be more concerned with what’s inside than outside. (Was this before or after I was surgically altered to have a better appearance?! hmmm…good question!) Still we are bombarded with the media’s obsessional images of “beautiful” with few of the examples over 50; although now 50 seems really young compared to 70! In reality the key to looking youthful is to hang around with really old people; and it did not take me years of expensive education to figure that out.

And remember when flying….sit next to the window with the shade up and take copious photos of the glorious tapestry below. I’d rather be an interesting, visually stimulated old lady than a lifeless, wrinkle free digitized humanoid any day! And it is looking less likely that I will be a ‘nice’ old lady! And get off my lawn…